Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician?

[calimbo]

Hi , i have a question , many people lose money with bets and some people earn money with betting. My question , to make a living with betting ,should i be a mathematician? Some people has said to me that only mathematicians and software programmers earn money in betting , so if i want make a living with betting i should be a mathematician and a sotware programmer (i am bad in mathematics and i don't know about programming ) :( So if you are a good mathematician and a software programmer you earn money with betting NO MATTER KNOWLEDGE ABOUT SPORT , only mathematics is the key to earn money . It's true??? pd: my question , what kind of mathematics are using professional gamblers? Logarithms , equations , algorithms ??, "NASA" super-computers to make estimations ?? Greetings

[goodfren]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician? I think one only need to have good brain. No matter what system or program, it all started from one brain on how to create it. Correct? Wrong? I don't know! :lol:lol:lol One right step for sure is do not give up and keep trying. Be happy to do it :nana

[sensibleboy]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician? Just make sure you are betting on the correct sport, ie: you have loads of knowledge about it etc. Wouldnt say you need to be a mathmetician though, thats shit talk m8 to be honest. Good Luck. :ok

[FleetFanatic]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician?

Hi , i have a question , many people lose money with bets and some people earn money with betting. My question , to make a living with betting ,should i be a mathematician? Some people has said to me that only mathematicians and software programmers earn money in betting , so if i want make a living with betting i should be a mathematician and a sotware programmer (i am bad in mathematics and i don't know about programming ) :( So if you are a good mathematician and a software programmer you earn money with betting NO MATTER KNOWLEDGE ABOUT SPORT , only mathematics is the key to earn money . It's true??? pd: my question , what kind of mathematics are using professional gamblers? Logarithms , equations , algorithms ??, "NASA" super-computers to make estimations ?? Greetings

They're doing martingdales. :spank

[Betfairbetting]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician? Professiona betting has not much to do with knowledge about sport, team, good feeling, sensitiveness etc., it is pure mathematics. For taking the money from bookies you should act just like them. Of course many times the insider info is important but in a long run no way. The insurance business is similar, think about it.

[goodfren]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician? BFB You have good example, but for one thing i don't really like about betting sport is that we are very easy to meet with non payment by bookie. So it is not as safe as people trying to profits from stock market. The only solution to this is to have more betting exchange so that the commission will become lower and safer to bet. Inorder to change this trends, it is the bettor themselves that can change this trends. If no one bet with bookie, than sooner or later, they are more willing to become an exchange operator.

[matjnewton]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician? Yeh more exchanges and less commission. Hear hear. The arb opps would be mind boggling. Mat.

[Betfairbetting]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician? Who cares about betting exchanges, odds, comissions etc., if you don't have positive ROI? You can make 47974443 Value bets and to lose all of them, because the "value betting" theory is good but is simply inapplicable and everybody who has an idea about mathematics can understand this fact which almost all people actually can't understand. You can bet on so many independent events with /maybe/ more probability than the odds suggest /i.e. with high enough odds/ and to lose all of them. This is a fact. And then what? You had big odds, no commissions but you lose. Everything you need is positive ROI (mainly for flat staking money management) and/or high hit rate (for proggressive staking money management).

[calimbo]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician? what meaning ROI? cheers

[calimbo]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician? Betfairbetting those professionals bettors need high level of mathematics? i want learn mathematics to get profits in the long run.

[MetallicIan]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician? Calimbo ROI means Return On Investment (or Yield). It can be worked out to a percentage by dividing TOTAL PROFIT TOTAL STAKED then multiply the result by 100 :ok

[Mr Intensity]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician?

Betfairbetting those professionals bettors need high level of mathematics? i want learn mathematics to get profits in the long run.

No, you don't need a high level on mathematics in general IMO; just Probability Theory and Expectation - but a lot of that can be intuitive so you may know that already;). Depending on what you're interested in you may need/want to know about certain distributions but I'm sure most professional gamblers don't know too much about these things.

Who cares about betting exchanges, odds, comissions etc., if you don't have positive ROI? You can make 47974443 Value bets and to lose all of them, because the "value betting" theory is good but is simply inapplicable and everybody who has an idea about mathematics can understand this fact which almost all people actually can't understand. You can bet on so many independent events with /maybe/ more probability than the odds suggest /i.e. with high enough odds/ and to lose all of them. This is a fact. And then what? You had big odds, no commissions but you lose.

I wouldn't take much notice of this if I were you:ok

[Betfairbetting]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician?

Betfairbetting those professionals bettors need high level of mathematics? i want learn mathematics to get profits in the long run.

It is very subjective. There are many complicated facts and formulas for estimations, forecasting etc. and you need integral and differential calculations for them, for instance if you want to use ARIMA models etc. I know people who make their estimations via ARIMA models but they don't have a big ROI /2-3 max 5 %/ but in a long run it is good /allthough it is now constant/. On the other side there are so many people who have no idea about these things but somehow manage to win too. But you should be able to work with percents at least:))

[PAULM03]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician?

It is very subjective. There are many complicated facts and formulas for estimations, forecasting etc. and you need integral and differential calculations for them, for instance if you want to use ARIMA models etc. I know people who make their estimations via ARIMA models but they don't have a big ROI /2-3 max 5 %/ but in a long run it is good /allthough it is now constant/. On the other side there are so many people who have no idea about these things but somehow manage to win too. But you should be able to work with percents at least:))

Regardless of the tools they're using they still have to find value. no value = no ROI :ok

[goodfren]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician? To me the easiet value is above 2.00 in Odds. Simple and direct. At the same time help bookie to balance their book. Win win situation i believed as many bookie also not sure who will win especially in over / under or A/H bet.

[PAULM03]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician?

To me the easiet value is above 2.00 in Odds. Simple and direct. At the same time help bookie to balance their book. Win win situation i believed as many bookie also not sure who will win especially in over / under or A/H bet.

:rollin:rollin You're on a pisstake aren't you?

[Datapunter]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician? :welcome Calimbo,

My question , to make a living with betting ,should i be a mathematician?

Well, i guess i'm just about the right man to answer this :lol Currently i make a part-time income from betting and i most certaiinly belong to that group of people who use maths much more than knowledge of sport to make a profit. First allow me to simplify the question a bit. To make a profit from betting should i be a mathematician ? Making a living is something you shouldn't even think about until you've managed a sustained period of profit making. No, a profit from betting can be made in many ways, applying maths is one way but applying sports know-how is just as valid. The key is that you need to find that way that will give you an edge. You need to find out what you are good/skilled/talented at and then apply that to make a profit. Maths do come into it, for anyone. A bettor is essentially a trader, one who buys and sells, whatever method used to get to the selections in the end we are all Del Boys trading out of a big suitcase we call 'bank'. You need to understand the market place, how the bookie works (overround) how the exchanges work (laying). You need to understand how essential it is to get a good price for your bets. Then you need to understand about risk and about managing your bank and stakes about "value" and how it all relates to each other. The maths involved here are quite simple and within everyones reach. Once these basics are mastered it comes down to patience and discipline. Two things that for us humans do not come naturally, unfortunately. It means keeping accurate records for extended periods of time, it means sticking to choosen strategies even when thing go against us, it means getting to grips with your greed/ego/gut feeling/superstitions/beliefs who at some point will all appear to be working against you :lol . Now i can say i've got a part-time income from betting but there have been hard lessons along the way, have lost thousands on silly bets. I use maths and computers to make a profit. I am basically a programmer. That is where my edge is. But it is certainly not the only way. There are plenty of people about on PL who simply use the tools available to anyone, eg. odds comparison sites, stats sites , and make a profit by doing what they are good at; applying sports knowledge. So if maths is what you are good at then follow that path but if not then simply learn the basics and then find out where your own talent lies and follow that path. If i may give you some advice ? The fact that you ask about making a living from betting and at the same time don't know what ROI is tells me that the point you are at now, newcomer, and the place you want to end up, professional, are very far apart. Forget about making a living from betting, at this point in time that is a waste of time. Take care of your life in general and by that i mean make sure you have a regular income. That will allow you to have some money you can afford to lose. Start as a hobby, learn the basics and select a main strategy you want to follow. See if you can make a profit consistently over the course over 2 - 3 seasons. Then, maybe, you can start thinking about making a living from betting again. Meanwhile just make sure you have fun.

[goodfren]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician? Great write up DP. Full points on this comment. Thank you for sharing your experience. This is what a new comer like me needed to know. Wish you win more and more everytime.

[Betfairbetting]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician?

Regardless of the tools they're using they still have to find value. no value = no ROI :ok

Wrong. You can make many winners which are not VALUE, but you can lose all the VALUE bets you find. ROI = winners, I mean winners which give profit, because of course you can catch many winners and to have a deep loss. The main problem with the Value betting theory is that bookies offer and accept bets on all games but the punters can not bet on all the value bets for making their theoretical profit according this "value". I mean you can have 10 games with probability 70 % for a home win and odds 2.00 for a home win and all of them to end x2 /if they are independent events/. Because this 70 % means that if this game wil be played 10 times it will finish 7 times with a home win but it is played only this time and can finish x2. The other case is when it means: If similar games with the similar teams will be played 10 times 7 of them will be 1 and they really will be but what is the guarantee that all the 10 times you will have a value in the 1 as the first time which can be x2? I hope I explained it clear.

[PAULM03]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician?

Wrong. You can make many winners which are not VALUE, but you can lose all the VALUE bets you find.

Depends on the size of your bank and staking strategy. You could also argue that if you are consistently finding winners then you are finding value somewhere or somehow. The simple fact is if you don't have an edge then long-term you will lose. If you do have an edge then long-term you will win. The key to strategy is managing your bank and stake to minimise the losses and maximise the winners.

The main problem with the Value betting theory is that bookies offer and accept bets on all games but the punters can not bet on all the value bets for making their theoretical profit according this "value". I mean you can have 10 games with probability 70 % for a home win and odds 2.00 for a home win and all of them to end x2 /if they are independent events/. Because this 70 % means that if this game wil be played 10 times it will finish 7 times with a home win but it is played only this time and can finish x2. The other case is when it means: If similar games with the similar teams will be played 10 times 7 of them will be 1 and they really will be but what is the guarantee that all the 10 times you will have a value in the 1 as the first time which can be x2? I hope I explained it clear.

You haven't explained it clearly at all, but from what I can decipher you're showing a fundamental mis-understanding of value and probability. I agree the result doesn't always go as expected (do you play poker:lol) and even 'fair' bets can have huge swings of fortune - toss a coin 20 times the likelihood is that you won't get exactly 10 heads and 10 tails, however if someone offered you odds of 2.1 on heads or tails then that would represent value. By the time you get to 100 or even 1000 'tosses' if you've managed your stake and bank properly then even in the face of huge losing runs you'd still make a profit.

[Datapunter]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician? Like MetalicIan said ROI means Return On Investment, nothing more than that. It is a term from the financial world and means the profit or loss made relative to the amount invested. Being relative it is nearly always expressed as a percentage. ( a loss is written as a negative percentage ) The term is actually not used that often in sportsbetting where yield is a more common term. Mathematically they are the same. To say ROI = winners is simply inaccurate. A positive yield, and thus profit, is made when the right combination of strike rate and average winners price is found. Strike rate is the relation of winners/losers, average price winners is exactly that. Looking at it from the point of view of finding winners. Imagine you are someone who is good at picking winners and you know after some time that you can find 50% winners ( and 50% losers ). In order to make a profit however you will need to find an average price on the winners of more than 2.00 . If you don't you will still end up with a loss. Looking at it from the point of view of finding value. Imagine you are someone who looks at a match and can reasonable determine the change a player has of winning. You then relate this change to a price. To keep things simple lets say you find matches where one opponant has more than 50% chance of winning and the odds on offer are 2.00 . You have found value and bet on those matches. In order to make a profit however you still need to get more than 50% actual winners. ( actually if you don't get 50% winners then your original estimation was wrong, its inherent ) In both cases "value" is involved and required for profit, just the approach is different. "value" can be found anywhere in sportsbetting, favourites as well as underdogs or long shots. Get the right combinations and you'll make profit. In the case of favourites for example. If you get a strike rate of 80% then you will make a profit if the average price on your winners is above 1.25. With long shots if you can get 20% winners and the price on the winners is above 5.00 you'll make a profit.

[goodfren]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician? I would like to add some reminder for the reader. Always beware yourself when trying to find value bets. The value is actually correspond with one estimation and is not the actual outcome value. If one have some way to work the value of the bet, it is also need to refer to the current market value is offering. If the difference of the value are too much, it is not mean that you have found gold mind, it may be a road to disaster. Example: One has work out his bet value is 1.40 for the match. But currently, the market is offering 2.10, to me, this situation does not represent any value, it is a very dangerous bet to jump into. The best is to stay out. If one has work out his value at 1.40 and the current market is offering about 1.80 or below which is about 30% higher than your estimated value is still consider valid due to certain unaccurate estimation by oneself. Other than that, do not think it is gold mine, it will not be most of the time,

[Betfairbetting]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician?

ROI = winners, I mean winners which give profit, because of course you can catch many winners and to have a deep loss.

To say ROI = winners is simply inaccurate. A positive yield, and thus profit, is made when the right combination of strike rate and average winners price is found.

Obviously you said the same. And, PAULMO3, actually I think you have no idea about value and probability if you didn't understand what I said about the value betting. First you should try to understand that tossing a coin has not much to do with sports betting, then you should understand what means "Team A has X % chances for a win today" and then you will /maybe/ understand what I explained. Winning by sports betting is not for everyone, but losing is.

[Mr Intensity]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician? I keep wanting to reply to this thread but I keep laughing when reading stuff like the above:$. There is at least one person on this thread that doesn't understand probablility and value, and I don't think it's Paul:ok.

The main problem with the Value betting theory is that bookies offer and accept bets on all games but the punters can not bet on all the value bets for making their theoretical profit according this "value". I mean you can have 10 games with probability 70 % for a home win and odds 2.00 for a home win and all of them to end x2 /if they are independent events/. Because this 70 % means that if this game wil be played 10 times it will finish 7 times with a home win but it is played only this time and can finish x2. The other case is when it means: If similar games with the similar teams will be played 10 times 7 of them will be 1 and they really will be but what is the guarantee that all the 10 times you will have a value in the 1 as the first time which can be x2? I hope I explained it clear.

This is just staggering, unless of course you plan on making one bet in your lifetime;)

[Betfairbetting]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician? OK, I will explain it better (allthough I don't have to do it) with the following example: Let us consider the following 10 games: A-B1 A-B2 .... A-B10 Bookies have calculated that A will win 7 of these 10 games, so in any of them the probability for a home win (A to win) is 70 %. You look at today's program and you see the game A-B1. Somehow you make the same estimations and you understand that A has 70 % chances for a win, which means fair odds about 1/0.70 ~ 1.43. But some bookie offers 1.55 for A to win and you are happy: Oleeeeee, this is valueeee, yesss, babyyyyyyyyyyy! You bet on A to win. And A doesn't win. You lose your bet and your money. After a few days you have A-B2 but this time everywhere odds are 1.40 for the home win. You don't see a value and you skip the bet. A wins. OK, but this happens with all the next 8 games too: A-B3, ..., A-B10. You skip all of them and at the end A have won 7 of them and haven't won 3 of them. The estimations have been right. But you have lost. You have taken the value you have seen and you have lost. And now let us imagine that another punter has managed to take among this 10 games only 5-6 with A to win and all of them have been winners. He hasn't taken value bets, but he has won and he has made profit. And now? Where does the value betting theory go?

[Mr Intensity]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician?

And now? Where does the value betting theory go?

Completely over your head:ok

[Norfolk Enchance]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician? That is the short term! If you bet on 1.43 shots at odds of 1.55 then in the long term you will make a profit. Making a profit from betting is simple really. Bet on prices that are higher than the true price and you will make profit in the long run. You do not need to be a mathematician, a ballerina, a software programmer or anything else to do this. You just need to be good at identifying value prices and be able to bet on them. If you don't make value bets then in the long run you will not have a positive ROI.

[Datapunter]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician? That is about as unrelated to reality as it gets, besides completely ignoring all the basics of statistics like "normal distribution", but quite fun to see someone define his own statistical reality :ok The key words in your epic are : And now let us imagine Statistics and the concept of value have nothing to do with "imagine", they are mathematical approaches to describe methods of obtaining a result in a given situation, ie. profit from sportsbetting. OK, but this happens with all the next 8 games too And this is the flaw in your thinking. Yes you can make a bet based on value and the bet can lose. Yes you can turn a bet down based on no value and the bet may win. In reality it doesn't happen on all the following matches. The distribution winners/losers will turn out to be 70%-30% but given a sufficient number of bets your sub-selection, ie. your own strike rate, will also be close to 70%-30%. In fact you have to do very little to do this, even random selections will do that. If you make sure, or as good as you can, that the matches you actually do bet on have value in the price you'll end up with a profit. Look at any specific moment in your betting and take a series of 10 bets and you may see a sequence as you describe. However look at your entire betting carrier, thousands of bets, and you'll see a "normal" pattern where profit comes from having gotten value in the prices used.

[Lardonio]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician? Please all remember as well that value is in the eye of the beholder, and that any match might contain value for all three outcomes for different people. You can understand the concept of value bets, but only your betting records over a long period of time will show if you can actually find value bets.

[calimbo]

Re: Make a living with betting ¿should i be a mathematician? one thing its clear , we must take away the factor luck in the long run and this is with mathematics , the problem is that i had very bad teachers and i want learn statistics to make profit. In betfair its "easy" make money in the short run thanks to back and lay but in the long run you lose (i lose manchester-sunerland much money) but i Barcelona - arsenal i get good profit . So maybe use leaguepad and learn equations and statistics.